Blue Burns the Flame
by Pink Bead Girl
Summary: What if Zuko's world was turned upside down as the sight of Azula bathing in the stream shatters everything Zuko ever thought he knew about himself. Prompted by NiceThorn's story, "The Masks We Wear." Ch29. Written with kind permission of said author.
1. Awakening

My story is prompted by **NiceThorn's** amazing story "_**The Masks We Wear**_." I read it with great enjoyment and started thinking to myself at the end of Chapter 31 _What if Zuko's world was turned upside down as the sight of Azula bathing in the stream shatters everything Zuko ever thought he knew about himself._

Here, with the**kind permission**** of NiceThorn **is the result of my musings.

Disclaimer: I write for my own pleasure and I make no money from my writings. All rights pertaining to A:TLA belong only to those they ought to and certainly not to me.

**Blue burns the flame**.

**Ch. 1. **_**Awakening **_

At first Zuko just concentrated on sluicing the surprisingly cold water over his arms, his hot, dusty skin beginning to feel somewhat refreshed as the rivulets of moisture ran over it. The day had been strenuous to say the least, what with the strangeness of it all. It wasn't every day that something so momentous as dragon slaying occurred even in the amazing life he and Azula had been living lately.

Zuko's head throbbed with a dull headache from adrenaline overload caused through the intense concentration that he'd needed to blast the huge quantities of energy into that mind-blowing scenario where those mighty behemoths had been bested.

His sister was just a few metres away, he could tell by the splashing sounds even though he was turned away from Azula, being focused more on his bathing than on what Azula was doing. Zuko scrubbed a double handful of water over his face, breathing out a spray of mist as he exhaled forcefully to stop the water going up his nose. He straightened up, shedding his hot, dirty shirt so as to finish the cleansing, soothing ritual of bathing, slowly bringing a little ease to his aching battle weary body.

Dropping the garment he bent over once more, lifting cupped handfuls of the clear water, splashing his chest and belly with abandon. He shivered as the impact tightened his skin, rippling gooseflesh across his torso, involuntarily pebbling his nipples with the combination of cold water and cool evening air.

Zuko thought about the dragon cubs as he washed, mightily pleased with the surprising discovery that resulted from Azula's astute speculation that where there was a 'mummy' dragon and a 'daddy' dragon, it surely meant that baby dragons wouldn't be far away. He turned to speak to her about what they should do next in that regard and as his eyes found her, the words dried up in his throat.

Azula knelt on the soft sand of the streambed bent forward a little as she scooped up water in her cupped palms. She had shed all of her clothes before entering the water after first having calculated the distance between her brother and herself. The dimming light and what seemed an adequate distance reassured her of her privacy and she concentrated on her task of finding some relief for her over-heated skin, smarting after so much exposure to that prolonged fire-stream. She was oblivious to Zuko as she hummed tunelessly, tiredness uppermost in her mind.

Her back was to her sibling and her pale skin caught the last of the radiance of the fading day, gleaming softly in the wan light. Zuko was entranced with the contrast of white skin and that long lustrous curl of rich brown hair twining over one shoulder, coiling itself in a rope that meandered down to her hip. He watched her kneel further forward as she dipped her face closer to the water's surface, her rounded curves accentuating as her bottom lifted a little further making a soft heart shape that his eyes marveled over.

Zuko stood still, his eyes riveted as his heartbeat increased and his belly muscles clenched as pressure asserted itself across his loins. A soft insistent ache began to escalate through him, his grinding headache forgotten for the moment. He watched a further minute or two, his golden eyes gleaming with an ardent heat when he suddenly froze and held his breath, a fierce flush flaming over his face.

_Dear spirits_! He thought to himself, _that's Azula there, naked and beautiful in the water. Azula. My sister._

_And I want her_.

The knowledge washed over him like a shocking shower of ice shards and he tore his gaze away, his mind mewling with the effort of _not wanting_ to look away, his head burning with the white-hot sear of _wanting to keep on looking_.

Looking at that beautiful creature that was his sister.

Confusion flared through his mind as he struggled with these unbidden alien thoughts; finally managing to scrape together enough resolve to keep his face turned away. Zuko hastily scrabbled for his shirt wanting, needing to cover his bare chest and back, trying to focus on something ordinary like getting dressed.

_You are not supposed to look at Azula with those thoughts_, his mind silently screamed at him. _She's your sister for sanity's sake. What is wrong with you?_

Zuko's thoughts continued to berate him. He had to stop and drag in several deep breaths, frantically searching for the equilibrium that had been his unthinkingly and effortlessly before the world started turning the wrong way around on its axis.

A deeper more insistent layer of his consciousness continued on a different path, playing over and over in his thoughts the way her skin gleamed like a pearl in the soft light. How the beads of water ran down her back, to trickle softly off the round sleek cheek of her bottom. Of how he _wished_ she would turn around. Of how he _wanted_ her to see the look in his golden eyes, searching her paler ones for that answering spark.

Zuko actively shook himself trying to restore order to his tortured thoughts. He turned briefly back to where Azula still splashed happily, oblivious to his torment. Willing his eyes to remain down cast, he barked out an order to her, startling her with his ferocity.

"Azula!" he spat out the words through gritted teeth. "Come on! Enough of this foolishness! You've had enough time to wash a dozen times over. Time to get back before more trouble finds us." With that he turned on his heel and started heading back, striding aggressively along the shingled edge of the stream, whipping up his anger as a cover to try and distance himself from those treacherous earlier thoughts.

Azula turned, startled at the unfamiliar harshness in her brother's voice. Her mouth opened in a soft gape of utter surprise. She began to ask Zuko what on earth was wrong with him, how dare he speak to her with that terse barking command but he had already marched off, stringing quite some distance between them in no time at all. Hurriedly shrugging on her garments in haphazard fashion Azula prepared to catch up the burgeoning gap between them.

Surprised irritation at Zuko's uncharacteristically irrational outburst was foremost in Azula's head as she made up her mind to get to the bottom of this mystery. She wondered at his sudden black mood, totally baffled at this strange behaviour given the earlier euphoria between them as they'd come down to bathe.

~0~

_Give me strength_ he thought grimly as he neared the cave.

_Give me the strength to forget the most beautiful thing I've ever seen_.

~0~

If you enjoyed this then reviews would be greatly appreciated.

If drama and intrigue of the Avatar: The Last Airbender kind are what you crave then please go and read "The Masks We Wear" by NiceThorn, you'll be glad you did.


	2. Temptation

_Can Zuko resist the temptation to play with fire?_

Prompted by **NiceThorn's** amazing story "_**The Masks We Wear**_." For you dear, with affection.

With the kind permission of **NiceThorn, **read on.

Disclaimer: I write for my own pleasure and I make no money from my writings. All rights pertaining to A:TLA belong only to those they ought to and certainly not to me.

**Blue burns the flame.**

**Ch. 2 **_**Temptation**_

Zuko lay uncomfortably on his side, face turned away from the comfort of the fire-pit, embers burning low between them and more importantly turned away from Azula's penetrating gaze. She was quiet now having temporarily exhausted every possible channel of finding out what was wrong with Zuko.

She'd started by imperiously demanding that he speak to her and when that failed, tried reverse logic on him, then just plain raged at him and finally most uncharacteristically for her, begged him to tell her what was wrong.

Azula was annoyed as well as puzzled by the fact that she had not been able to have the upper hand over him like she usually did. It aggravated her that he was able to hold out against everything she could throw at him and still not crack and tell her what the bee in his bonnet was.

So Azula lay there now getting too sleepy to seethe on and fell into oblivion, her last thoughts being that she'd wring it out of him tomorrow no matter what.

~0~

When they'd returned from the stream, Azula had fed the cubs whilst blasting a non-stop stream of words against her brother much in the way she blasted fire at her enemies. Hoping to browbeat him into telling her something, anything, a word to let her know what had suddenly brought this thundercloud between them.

The tense atmosphere and the shouting made the little dragons uneasy and they shuffled together and blinked at each other not knowing quite what to make of it. Azula had noted their distress, paused and stroked their warm scales, gently letting her touch-image reassure each of the scaly youngsters that what ever discord was happening between their blue-fire parents it was not of their doing. Nor was it directed towards them in any way. The little blue and red creatures settled down a little and continued to feed, tummies needing filling no matter what else was happening. Meanwhile she had continued to tongue-lash Zuko to the best of her ability.

Zuko had let her invective wash over him, much in the way that Azula's burnished blue flames washed over the little dragon's backs while they ate. The images of her down at the stream flickered relentlessly through his mind even through Azula's in turn wheedling, annoyed and angry inquisition that seemed to be fuelled with a never-ending source of energy. He unrolled his bedding and shook it,

…_Don't think, don't look, don't think, and don't look…_

He forcibly scrubbed over his thoughts with this mantra as he busied himself unnecessarily folding and unfolding his blanket over and over again.

Finally she'd flung at him that Grandfather had wanted him killed, that Father was supposed to do it and that it was the catalyst for Mother having left them. She'd hoped that this inflammatory provocation would finally nettle him into some kind of response and while it made him blink with the force of it, Zuko with great effort of will managed to merely grunt at her while continuing to arrange a sleeping space for himself, his gaze firmly anywhere but on her.

The last bit of information from Azula just added another layer of turmoil to his thoughts but Zuko pushed it with difficulty to the back of his mind, he had enough stress to be going on with for the moment.

And even as his sister hurled her tirade at him, even as Zuko felt hot flicks of anger rising in him because of her verbal abuse and was grateful for the distraction, his body continued to play him false along with that traitorous layer of his mind. The anger he was so desperately trying to keep up was only the thinnest of veneers over the rising tide of prickles of desire that refused to be quelled.

So Zuko lay there now on his side of the banked fireplace, well aware that Azula lay so near just the other side of the pit, silent even as her baffled anger still seemed to fizz and spark like an aura around her even though Zuko was reasonably sure she must be either asleep or close to it by now.

The memory of the way that precise curl of hair against her smooth back outlined the perfection of her form just haunted him. The little voice in Zuko's head continued to murmur, bringing up image after image that he was helpless to block from his mind's eye.

Remembering the way those drops of water shimmered on her skin made his throat constrict. He'd have given anything to have knelt behind her and lap each little crystal drop from her skin, his tongue tracing a pathway of soft, wet warmth to replace the water's coolness. To press up against her with his hands finding their way around her smooth sides and up to cup the sweet roundness of her breasts as he pulled her back against him. To just…

_Stop it, stop it, and stop it! _Zuko railed silently at him self as he turned warily on to his back allowing himself a fleeting glance in Azula's direction, convinced that she'd noticed his turmoil even though it was silent. He unwittingly groaned softly then, his torment just too much and he froze, fearing that she really _had_ heard something this time.

Zuko listened cautiously for a moment hearing nothing other than a little snuffle or two from the baby reptiles sleeping in their alcove. Zuko carefully rotated further to face Azula's direction making a great play once again of rearranging his blankets to cover the fact he was warily double-checking to see whether she was still awake or really had fallen asleep.

It seemed that his angry, beautiful sister had finally dropped off, given the way her breathing was deep and relaxed. He let his own breath out in a long drawn out shuddering sigh, unaware that he'd actually been holding it.

The embers in the fire-pit had burned down so low as to be just a faint orange glow in the velvet darkness around him. The sandy-floored cave was warm enough so he decided not to rekindle the flames but just lay there thinking or really, just trying to think of anything but Azula.

Zuko held up a hand in front of him, halfway to arm's length. As his head whirled with too many thoughts he idly directed just enough energy to his fingertips to make the faintest of tiny blue flames kindle on his palm. He brought up his other hand and traced the flame path along his lifeline. The sensation was mild yet it somehow fizzed too, just enough to let him know it was stimulating his nerve endings with growing flickers of desire.

_I wonder how this would feel if I stroked my fingers along Azula's back_, he mused. _How would these soft blue sparks make her feel? React? Respond? _

He imagined Azula's eyes widening and her mouth opening in a soft 'o' as he fluttered his fingertips over her skin, not quite touching her but that infinitesimal gap filled with that azure heat as he traced her curves.

A quiet groan escaped him and Zuko felt a surge of desperate desire bolt through him, feeling the blood rush through his veins as he hardened instantly at the delirious thought of Azula's reaction.

Suddenly, realizing what he was allowing himself to think, he clapped his hands together, quenching that beguiling sapphire flame that was leading him so astray. Guilt flashed through him hotter than any fire than Azula could ever bend, searing him through, raising sweat on his torso and face.

_No, no, no and a thousand times, no!_

_Stop thinking. Stop thinking,_ he chanted inwardly to himself in despair.

_You can't have her. _

_You shouldn't have her. _

_You can't think of her in this way._

Zuko rolled back onto his other side, wrapping the blanket firmly around him, willing himself to sleep, to be lost to the safety of unconsciousness before what was left of his sanity left him.

Where had this madness come from? He wasn't lusting over his sister just a week ago, so what had been the catalyst? It didn't matter which way he turned it round and round, the answer wasn't there to be found but the relentless tom-tom drumbeat of _want, want_, _want_ certainly was. Thrumming relentlessly through his veins no matter what tricks he tried with his mind.

_Surely this way lies madness_ he thought weakly.

_Madness_.

_But I want her_.

Zuko clenched his eyes shut and tried his best divest himself yet again of all those sweet, treacherous, beguiling thoughts, to think of literally nothing, concentrating hard on imagining nothing at all but a black empty void around him. He lay, minutes dragging like hours, counting his breaths in and out in a vain attempt at diversion; until at long last he felt himself teeter on the edge of what he hoped was dreamless sleep.

Closing his eyes his last conscious thought was,

_Want. Want you Azula_.

~0~

Hope you enjoyed this, reviews most appreciated!


	3. Seared

_**Those who play with fire get their fingers burnt**__. _

Prompted by **NiceThorn's** amazing story "_**The Masks We Wear**_." For you dear, once more with affection.

Disclaimer: I make no money from this and write purely for my own pleasure. All rights pertaining to A: TLA belong to those that it ought to and it certainly isn't me.

Now with the kind permission of **NiceThorn, **read on.

**Blue Burns the Flame,**

**Ch 3. **_**Seared**_**.**

He traced the barely-there ripple of her backbone again and again with a reverent tongue, bending at the hips from his position sitting astride the back of her thighs. Gathering up her lustrous hair with one hand, Zuko held it aside as his kisses continued up along the irresistible slant of her nape.

Azula's body was firm, her muscles finely defined, strength underneath the tempting curves. She was no primped and petted sweets-consuming palace poppet and that was one of the things Zuko found so entrancing about her.

Azula was lithe and strong and about to be warmly, willingly his. Breath hissing softly out of his mouth, he allowed some more of his weight to press further against her back, finding himself deliciously wedged against the swell of her bottom, Azula flexing a little back towards him as she realized how his hardness was so perfectly trapped against her firmly rounded backside. She moistened as the tiny insistent pushes Zuko made sent tremors right through her, sweet pressure travelling through to where she was wet… warm… wanton.

Hearing the sounds she made, those exciting little moans that drove his desire up yet a notch further than Zuko thought possible. It made it hard to think straight but he eased back and knelt over her now, strong hands gripping her sides and effortlessly turning her over and up to face him.

Her long hair fanned out messily over her makeshift pillow, cheeks flushed with invitation boldly in her eyes; high on the desire he'd kindled within her.

"Come now dear brother, _surely_ there's more?" Azula laughed up at him insolently, placing her palms squarely against his chest, the skin-to-skin contact hot and intense, inflaming him even further.

"Teach me something about fire that I _don't_ know," she purred like the sleek, fierce creature she was.

"Make me _burn_ for you, _bend_ me as your flame. Find lightning for me _my prince_," she mocked as she licked her reddened lips and rubbed circles with teasing fingertips over his chest, dipping lower over his belly with each swoop.

Zuko's muscles contracted as Azula's heated fingers passed over his chest, his belly tight and filling with a low ache that needed release and _soon_. He caught her marauding fingers and held her gaze as he spoke to her, his breath heated against her face.

"You _want_ fire, princess? You _want_ to burn with unquenchable heat? You _want_ _me_, Azula? Me? Zuko, your dear _brother?_" Zuko ground out huskily as he slid his hands under her hips and lifted her to him, the back of her thighs sleek and slicked with sweat as he spread her wide.

Any further mocking banter dried up in her throat as Azula listened, fascinated, to that suddenly _dark voice_.

Where was little Zuzu, the _brother_ that she could make do anything, anywhere, anytime she wanted to? This _brother_, this _stranger_ was practically making her forget her own name and his next actions and words rendered her speechless as well.

Sliding her legs over the front of his own thighs he knelt there between hers, pausing to drink in the growing glittering fever in her honey-yellow eyes.

"I'll give you fire Azula. My princess. My _sister_." He spoke with a heated vehemence that made Azula tingle with anticipation, her body hungry for his next move.

Zuko dipped his middle and index fingertips into where she was sleekest and softest, exulting in the liquid heat of her, watching her sharp intake of breath as he stroked, petted and teased her. Willing his self to wait just a few seconds more, he felt the unbelievable intensity of her warm tightness around his fingers rev his heartbeat to a blur. Zuko transferred some of Azula's fragrant, silky wetness to himself, smirking as he heard her little 'oh' of loss as he withdrew his hand. Zuko spent another few moments anointing his hardened flesh, carefully making sure he'd be wet and smooth and easy for her, his gaze searing her all the while.

" Oh I'll give you what you _want_, Azula," he growled in a voice she'd never heard before, "_I'll take you into the heart of the furnace, sweet sister."_

And with that, two became one.

Zuko looked down into her golden eyes as her focus lost its sharpness, as the fires rose within her. He felt consumed by her, the rhythm between them needing no thought, no plan. Azula clung to him, sharp nails pressing first into the back of his arms and then sliding down his back, the pressure of her palms against him joined by the press of her calves over his lower back.

The warrior princess looked up at him and bit her lip as the heat escalated, as Zuko's pale topaz eyes mesmerized her as he drove steadily on, her body growing ever slicker against his.

_This_ was the brother Azula never realized existed, but on some deep, dark intrinsic level Azula knew that _this_ version of Zuko was what she craved.

"More," Azula breathed hotly against his cheek, "More Zuko. More." He pressed his cheek against her neck finding new strength, and suddenly the world grew incandescent, flame filling her, body and soul.

She frantically twisted the fingers of one hand through his soft black hair, caring not at all how hard she pulled, the sharp nails of her other hand raking pink welts along his back. Azula felt Zuko shudder and tremors wracked him as he called out her name raggedly against her neck and she was lost.

Blue sparks bloomed between them, belly and breast, thigh and back, heart and soul as she contracted and rippled around him, gasping for breath as she felt utterly, heatedly overwhelmed. Transfigured by the alchemy Zuko had wrought, the two of them becoming a creature of lust and flame, a phoenix of fire begotten in desire.

~0~

Zuko jerked awake, sitting up in a heated frenzy, blinking, initially unable to discern which way was up in his white-hot world. He was lathered with sweat, his hair lank, his cheeks burning as he looked about wildly, looking for some point of reference to anchor his bewildered wits on.

Zuko shakily ran his fingers through his tousled hair, breath still catching in his throat. While he continued trying to make some sense of his disordered thoughts, he frantically patted his chest, willing his galloping heartbeat to slow.

Zuko looked down, surprised, grimacing as his fingers met the naked sweatiness of his chest and belly and then groaned hollowly as he realized what had happened, looking around the dimmed cave in disbelief and panic.

_Oh Spirits! Oh Azula! What have I done?_

~0~


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